


i wanna be your sister til the end, til the end do you wanna be mine?

by lucifergiggles



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, anyway, i have a lot of feelings for the abernant sisters, im so glad aelwyn is getting the redemption she deserves, it's just me rambling for over 1500 words, just something quick i wrote up after part 1 of the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23446531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucifergiggles/pseuds/lucifergiggles
Summary: you’re three, and you don’t quite get it yet, but you have a baby sister now! she’s small, and looks kinda like you, and you’re in love already.you don’t realise that this will be one of the last moments for a very,verylong time that you will be able to hold her in such high regard.
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Aelwen Abernant
Comments: 32
Kudos: 160





	i wanna be your sister til the end, til the end do you wanna be mine?

**Author's Note:**

> just a quick thing i wrote up after today's episode because i have a lot of feelings for the abernant sisters.
> 
> catch me at [puwumats](https://www.puwumats.tumblr.com) for occasional liveblogging and crying over the dnd real play series that have taken over my life

you’re three, and you don’t quite get it yet, but you have a baby sister now! she’s small, and looks kinda like you, and you’re in love already.   
  
you don’t realise that this will be one of the last moments for a very, _very_ long time that you will be able to hold her in such high regard.

******

you’re six, and your mother tells you your sister is a nightmare. she never does what she’s told, she doesn’t listen, (“she’s not like _you_ darling.” your mum says with a sigh). when you try to tell her that no, adaine wasn’t the one to jump off the couch and break the expensive elven vase, that was you, she smiles distantly and praises you for being a good big sister for trying to take the blame.  
  
adaine is still sent to her room without dinner, and you are fine - even though it _was_ you who broke the vase.  
  
you can still hear adaine’s little sobs through the walls of your room. 

*******

you’re ten and you’re in your last year of elementary school. even though you moved to a whole new country a couple of years prior, even after the several attempts from your sister to hang out with you, you already rule the school. (“ _that’s_ your sister?” one of your friends giggles, as adaine walks past and waves shyly at you. you ignore adaine - even though there’s a part of your brain that wants to wave back - and turn to your friend, quenching her need to torment those more vulnerable with placades - whispered giggles back of _i know right? it’s like we’re hardly related_. you see your sister out of the corner of your eye as her shoulders slump and she walks away dejectedly.   
  
something in your heart - you’re not quite sure what - breaks a little.)

*******

you’re thirteen, and your sister is such a little brat. she’s annoying, headstrong, doesn’t obey your parents (a small, ever so quiet part of you envies her) and she just tried to cast tasha’s hideous laughter at you for calling her barbaric. you’re only telling her the truth (the one that has been unknowingly fed to you your whole life), and it’s not your fault that she can’t better herself. it’s her fault she keeps getting in trouble with your parents, not yours - she should just be more like you. more studious, more proper, more obedient.   
  
(thinking about it for too long makes your head hurt, so you walk away in a huff and tell your parents what she did.)  
  
(you only feel a tiny bit of remorse for that one.)

********

you’re sixteen and plans are already in motion to bring back kalvaxus. they’re nowhere near complete, but in a meeting with the emperor of the red wastes himself, he mentions the elven oracle, and by how they were going to bring them to solace. someone (was it you? you can’t remember) suggests killing the oracle, and making sure the new one is within solace borders. what’s left of your heart (that hasn’t been buried under many, many walls) seizes up, as your quick mind already comes up with a firm guess at who it would be. she’s already showing signs of favouring divination magic so it’s not an illogical jump.

you consider keeping this information to yourself, but then you think of the power at stake. (think of how pleased your mother, your _father_ would be. all the glory, the riches, it’ll be all theirs. no wait, yours. it’ll be all yours.) 

so you open your mouth, and you place the next gear in a long, complex plan that (although unknowingly at the time) you will regret for the rest of your life.

********

you’re seventeen, and you just got kidnapped and taken back to fallinel. they put you in an orb, and pry you for information about everything: kalvaxus, what he was planning to do, the people who got you captured in the first place.  
  
what they don’t know, or realise, is that you’ve spent so many years building walls: a little bit of torture isn’t going to break them. 

(wasn’t it torture to watch the only person you might have a sliver of emotions for be berated everyday for not being better, not being you? or was it torture to see the look on your sisters’ face when she found out you were behind the kidnappings of those girls? (the look on her face; a mixture of vindication, and, was it sorrow?) maybe the reason you’re so good at resisting now, is because you’re doing exactly what you needed to do back then.)

this orb they placed you in, it never stops. it just rotates and rotates, dragging you with it, keeping you moving - however unwilling. you know, deep inside your heart, that no one is going to get you out of this one. so you get those walls you built - that you based your whole school of magic on - and you squeeze them down, squashing whatever is in there even further inside you. and then you place another wall around that. and then another. and finally, you save a piece of yourself - you from what feels like forever ago (but is only probably a few days old) - right in the centre of this impenetrable city. a backup of your self, in case they break you. 

you know only one person who can break the barriers holding it. you make sure to leave her a note.

*******

you’re eighteen. you think. it’s hard to tell when your mind is as scattered as it is now. how long have you been here, rotating, never stopping? 

days? 

weeks? 

_years_?

you think you’ve seen your parents come and go, their faces blurring into all the others that come to try and pry into your head. they haven’t taken you out, they haven’t even _tried_ . you were good, you were so good for them, and now they stare at you through a slightly opaque magic ball; their distant, firm gazes assessing you like you were merely an object. they say something about a crown, and a nightmare king, but it’s hard to pay attention to that. you haven’t tranced in _so long_. how long has it been? days? weeks? years? you think you see your parents come and-

*******

you’re ~~eighteen~~ seventeen and you just came to in a hot tub, your sister ( _she’s safe she’s safe she’s safe_ ) sitting on the edge, looking at you with wide eyes. you stop to take stock of yourself, immediately noticing how weak and fragile you feel. with the way adaine is looking at you, you can very clearly tell something happened. she starts talking to you, and although your immediate reaction is to tell the answers that she is asking, begging from you, you look up and see her.

the terrifying vision herself, a tabaxi bathed in shadows, orders you not to say anything, to leave as soon as possible, you still have a part to play.

you’re not sure if it’s your weakened state, the look in your sister's eyes (pity, sorrow - hope?), or the thought of leaving the one person who has shown you kindness - true kindness, but you feel like crying. (there’s a loud voice in your brain that sounds like your mother telling you how uncouth it is to cry at something like this, so you fold all of your feelings into a tightly secured box, and you start to make plans to get away.)

(you can’t look over your shoulder as you leave - she’ll see - but you want to.)

*******

you’re eighteen, and your father is holding your sister captive. her body shakes with rage, and sadness, and just waves and waves of painful emotion. she is still defiant, even until the end. she looks at you, pleading with her eyes, while your father is talking. you’re physically holding back the horror from escaping your carefully constructed walls as you hear him talk about torturing adaine, like he was ordering lunch. 

your sister, _his daughter_.

when he tells you to look inside her mind, to search for knowledge of her friends (you’re tired, you’re so tired), she lets you in willingly.

what you see there, breaks you. (the horror of what happened in your missing year, the images of adaine’s memories of you - _she has no good memories of you_ , and she still wants your redemption - so this is what love, true, unconditional love, is like). you reel back from the detect thoughts spell, and all you can say is _i didn’t find anything, i_ **_couldn’t_ ** _find anything_.

this does not please your father.

*******

_whatever you decide, i’m with you_.

*******

the barrier reverberates the spell with a loud sound that echoes in the cursed forests, then the bubble trapping adaine - your sister - disperses, freeing her. your father, in his anger, whips to you and then you feel heat, a searing pain, a thump of your head against something, and then nothing.

in the haze of not-consciousness, you see adaine (so strong, stronger than you have ever or will ever be) utterly annihilating your father in one punch. 

you can’t quite find it in yourself to feel sad about that.

you’re just about to close your eyes when you feel familiar hands on you, stabilizing your wounds, carefully (lovingly) working their way over your injuries to stop you from leaving the mortal plane.

you feel safe, and loved, and in your haze, you tell her everything you can. as your eyes close in rest, you take one last look in your sister’s similar, tear-welled eyes.

it fills you with comfort, and a shred of a hope (something you haven’t had in a long time) that the future is going to be okay. it’s a nice feeling to fall back under to.

(for the first time, adaine has a good memory of you. and you, a memory of her, not tainted by the stain of your parents.)

*  
*  
*  
*

you hope that bunk bed fits.

**Author's Note:**

> #let the bad kids (and their loved ones) be happy, _brennan_ 2k20


End file.
